The Democrats seem confident for the first time in a long time. The Republicans will make the process as messy and annoying as possible, but it looks manageable. I wish I could find some discussion of what’s going to be in the sidecar reconciliation bill. It seems to me that it will matter a lot what the Democrats ultimately decided to put in there. Are they looking to get 59 votes in the Senate, or are they looking to make the bill something the people actually like?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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I doubt that we will hear what’s in the sidecar bill until the deal is done and the votes are lined up to slam it through.
I think at a minimum, all the earmarks will be stripped, the Obama 11 pages written in, possibly authorization of undercover patients and something requiring information transparency in the exchanges just to add two Republican ideas from the Summit, and whatever else was negotiated with the Senate before the Massachusetts election.
If the public option is added, it will be the Senate adding it separately somehow with an up-or-down vote extorted somehow (only if Reid has the votes). Whether the votes are there for an up-or-down vote is the mystery. If they aren’t, the folks who scuttled the public option will have murdered it in the dark. Wonder what Reid could do to extort an up-or-down vote out of McConnell?
Wouldn’t the Republican base go nuts if McConnell allowed an up-or-down-vote? I imagine the knives will be out for him once the bill passes and he’s trying to think of ways to preserve his hide by any means necessary. So it’s hard to see what incentive he would have to give in to Reid procedurally.
As they say down here, Reid has to know what McConnell’s Jesus is in order for that to happen.
Maybe some more publicity about the 270 bills that the Republicans have bottled up.
Bill Frist’s talking about actually ending the filibuster seemed to have worked on Democrats. Put Joe Biden in the presiding chair for a few days, just as a little Kabuki.
This is getting more and more interesting to watch.
They do seem more confident, and that’s a great thing. This is how we get the ball rolling on a progressive era: one win (Obama’s election) clears the path forward to the next (healthcare reform), which clears the path forward to the next (immigration, energy, filibuster, who knows?). Each big win brings greater confidence and ambition for the next go-round (just as a big loss would have the opposite effect).
Indeed, amid all the coverage, I feel like I haven’t seen much discussio of the long-term political implications of health reform, probably because folks are still so worried about it not passing. But I think it’s gonna be huge. Once these reforms kick in, people are going to love them – that’s the progressive bet, anyway. And Republicans have fought them so hard that no one will be able take their inevitable attempts to steal credit for it seriously (unlike the stimulus). The country will long remember which side the Republicans were on in this fight and it won’t be pretty. That is why they are terrified of this bill. That is why it has the potential to shatter their coalition once it passes.
If Joe Scarborough is calling you out, you have some real problems. Stop protecting the corporate lackeys, and give us an up/down vote.
i almost hate to say it …
just bracing myself for the next “complication”.